Environent department goes bird-nesting

THREE Bonelli’s eagle chicks were handed over to the ‘Life Bonelli’ project to raise.
They will later be released in the autonomous regions of Madrid, the Basque Region and Navarra where, unlike Andalucia, the Bonelli’s eagle population is endangered. Mallorca, where no Bonelli’s eagles have been seen since 1970, is another of the areas on which the ‘Life Bonelli’ initiative is concentrating.
Environment Department experts had to turn mountaineer to locate the chicks in their nests on the Sierras of Gador, Alhamilla and Filabres. They chose those with two chicks, always taking the smaller bird which would be likely to have fewer chances of survival in the wild. The remaining chick was fitted with a GPS tracking device so that its movements can now be followed.
There are approximately 768 pairs of these birds of prey in the Iberian Peninsula, with 354 pairs in Andalucia alone where their stable population is steadily reproducing.